![]() ![]() Her proposals included establishing an EU “naval blockade” off North Africa’s coasts as well as setting up EU immigration centers in Africa to evaluate people’s asylum requests there. During last year’s electoral campaign, Meloni claimed that “illegal immigration threatens citizens’ security and quality of life” and promised to stem the influx. Italy, meanwhile, is the main point of arrival for migrants leaving from countries such as Libya and Tunisia in a bid to reach Europe by sea. France’s centrist President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly trounced far-right leader Marine Le Pen in presidential debates by laying bare the incoherence of her program. Britain continues to be reached by tens of thousands of irregular migrants every year well after pro-Brexit right-wingers convinced it to break away from the EU to “take back control” of its borders. President Donald Trump never did build the wall, though his successor still aims to do so. Right-wing populists around the world are often accused of selling simplistic, unrealistic fixes to complex problems, especially immigration. ![]() “The government is under a lot of pressure.” “This is a big problem for Meloni,” said Matteo Villa, a senior research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. More than 70 percent of Italians believe that Meloni has done less than she had promised on immigration, and 66 percent say the government is not capable of handling the issue. ![]() Last month, 7,000 people arrived over just a couple of days in Lampedusa, a small Italian island between Malta and Tunisia that has become a flash point of Europe’s migrant crisis, overwhelming reception facilities there.Īs the European Union reels from Islamist attacks in the French city of Arras and in Brussels, which highlighted the shortcomings of its migration system, and amid heightened security concerns linked to the war between Israel and Hamas, Meloni’s immigration woes show the struggles of populist leaders with so-called easy solutions confronted with the reality of government. Thousands more lost their lives during the journey. With political instability, war, poverty, and global warming plaguing much of Africa and the Middle East, more than 140,000 migrants have already reached Italy by boat this year, almost twice as many as in the whole of 2022. After decades talking tough on immigration and a year after becoming Italy’s most right-wing prime minister since the Second World War, Giorgia Meloni finds herself dealing with a surge in arrivals from Africa that is sorely testing her electoral pledge to keep irregular migrants away from Italian shores. ![]()
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